A totally different kind of irregularities is found in many learned words, where scholars have introduced the plural as well as the singular form from foreign languages.. There is an old
Trang 1meaning of plural.—Special meaning in plural.—Words
used in plural only
20.11 To indicate a definite number we have the so-called cardinal numerals: One, two,
three, etc
It will be seen that the first numerals up to twelve are formed unsystematically, but
that there is some system in the words from 13 to 19, which are formed by composition
of the numbers three, ƒour, etc., with teen, a modified form of ten—the first part of the
compound being also in some cases modified; another system comprises the “tens”
formed by means of -ty: here, too, some of the first parts are modified: twenty, thirty, forty, fifty A hundred, a thousand, a million, a billion are again unsystematic; but
otherwise the higher numerals are formed systematically by multiplication and addition,
e.g 2569, two thousand five hundred and sixty-nine In additions of tens and ones the old practice as in ƒive and twenty has now generally given way to the opposite order without and: twenty-five; this is imperative when hundred precedes: 325 three hundred and twenty-five
From the numerals in -teen is evolved the indefinite numeral teens: she is still in her teens
As still more indefinite numerals may be considered some, many, ƒew (a few), numerous, etc Note also the use of odd: forty odd
Instead of saying one time and two times we say once, twice The third corresponding word thrice is obsolete
One is also used as a pronoun (17.1, cf 8.36, 8.4); weakened forms are an and a
The ending -th may be applied also to dozen and to mathematical symbols like n: the dozenth, the nth
Ordinals are used outside their proper sphere to denote fractions: one-third, ƒourths, etc Note the irregular half Other indications of fractions: quarter (fourth), per cent (hundredth)
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Trang 2Cardinals are used instead of ordinals (through the influence of reading) in cases like
Book three (Book III), Chapter IX, in the year 1914, etc., thus always after number,
which may be said to be a device to make a cardinal into an ordinal
Singular and Plural
20.21 Outside these numerals we have grammatical expressions of number in most substantives, in some pronouns and in some verbal forms, but neither in adjectives nor in particles While some languages distinguish a singular (for one), a dual (for two)—sometimes even a trial (for three)—and a plural, English like most of the cognate
languages has now only a singular and a plural The only remainder of a dual is both
After a consonant -y is changed into -ies: flies, ladies, babies But after
a written vowel y is retained: boys, days; thus also generally in proper names: Henrys, Pollys
After a sibilant -es is added in the spelling, except, of course, in such words as horses, bridges, where an -e is written in the singular
Corps makes regularly though the spelling is identical in both numbers
20.23 Some words have a voiceless consonant in the singular and the corresponding
voiced sound in the plural (5.6), namely:
(1) a dozen words in [f], written f or fe, plural [vz], written ves; thus:
Trang 3Other words in -f retain this in the plural, e.g cliffs, cuffs, rooƒs, dwarfs, sheriffs, beliefs, safes; thus also words originally French like chiefs, fiefs, griefs, though beef has the archaic beeves The ending is also [fs] in words like coughs, laughs, troughs; paragraphs, etc
Vacillation is found in the plural of scarf and wharf Staff originally made the plural staves (note the different vowel sound); but a new singular was developed from this: stave in the two senses “piece of a cask” and “stanza, piece of music,” while a regular plural has been formed, staffs, “bodies of men”; cf also flagstaffs
(2) Words with a long vowel or diphthong before [p] change this into [ð] before [z];
the change is not shown in the spelling: bath [ba·p], balhs [ba·ðz]; thus also paths, mouths, oaths, sheaths, though with some vacillation
The voiceless sound of th is always retained after a short vowel, as in smiths, myths, deaths, and after a consonant: months, healths; thus also after a written r, though this no longer has a consonantal sound: births, fourths, hearths The old regular plural of cloth was clothes (with regard
to the vowel cp staff, staves), but in meaning as wcll as in sound the two are now so different that clothes must be considered a word apart, and a new plural has been formed, cloths (table cloths, horse cloths in
the sense “different kinds of cloth,” also pronounced
(3) [s] is changed into [z] in one word only: house [haus], pl houses [hauziz]
20.24 An unvoiced [s], where we should expect the voiced ending, is found in two words:
die, pl dice
penny, pl pence (cf 5.63)
From the latter we have the compounds twopence, threepence (both with changed vowel sound in the numeral [tΛpəns, pripəns]), fourpence, fivepence (older fippence), sixpence Note the double plural ending in sixpences On the use of the form twopenny as an
adjunct see 21.62 When individual coins as such, different from the value, are meant, the
regular plural, pennies, is used Three halfpence (note the pronunciation [heipəns]); when the coins are meant, both halfpennies and halfpence occur
20.31 There are a few survivals of earlier formations: oxen, children; men, women,
feet, geese, teeth, mice, lice It is worth noting that such irregularities are preserved in the
most familiar and popular words only, the reason being that the plural forms occur so very often in ordinary speech that children hear them frequently at an early age Some of the words are used much more frequently in the plural than in the singular; this is particularly true of the last few of the list given here
The old form brethren is preserved through the influence of the Bible, while the regular new formation, brothers, is the only one in ordinary use
20.32 A totally different kind of irregularities is found in many learned words, where scholars have introduced the plural as well as the singular form from foreign languages
As examples may be given:
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Trang 4There is, however, a strong natural tendency to inflect such words as are in everyday use
in the English way: no one thinks of using a learned ending instead of saying ideas, circuses, gymnasiums, etc Formulas, dogmas, and funguses are more English than formula, dogmata, and fungi Indexes is used in ordinary language, but indices in mathematics; geniuses means “men of genius,” but genii “spirits.” Stamina in Latin is the plural of stamen, but in English it is apprehended as an independent singular Similarly errata (the Latin plural of erratum) is used as a singular with the meaning “list of
printer’s errors.”
The Latin plurals are always preferred where the addition of the English ending -es would produce a harsh sequence of three hissing sounds: bases, not basises, analyses, axes, hypotheses, oases
A Hebrew plural in -im is found in cherubim, seraphim, now usually cherubs, seraphs
The Unchanged Plural 20.41 Many substantives are unchanged in the plural, either always or in certain employments
Thus some names of animals: sheep, deer, swine The unchanged plural is further
found in many names of animals that are hunted because of their usefulness to man:
snipe, wild duck (but tame ducks), waterfowl (but generally fowls in a farmyard), fish (by the side of fishes), salmon, trout, etc Foreign names of animals are often unchanged: buffalo, giraffe, nilghai
There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it
Fishes are cast away that are cast into dry ponds
Next we have the unchanged plural in some words indicating number: six brace of pheasants, four dozen, three score years and ten, two hundred times, five thousand a year, three million people When these words are not preceded by a numeral, they take s: dozens of times, hundreds of people, etc
Pairs and couples are now more usual than the unchanged plurals pair and couple The unchanged plural of measures of length (foot, fathom, mile) is now generally given up, except foot in an indication of a person’s height: five foot ten
Stone (the measure of weight) has the unchanged plural, but pound instead of pounds
is antiquated (On five pound note, see 21.62.)
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Trang 5Note, further, six thousand horse (=horse soldiers) and ten thousand foot, five cannon, many small craft, two hundred sail (=ships), five thousand head of cattle
20.42 In the femiliar these kind of tools, those sort of speeches, we may look upon
kind and sort as unchanged plurals; but there is a tendency to treat kind of and sort of as inseparable units; cp the vulgar kind of before a verb: “I kind of admire her.” In literary style books of that kind is preferred to those kind of books
In that kind of thing we have a survival of the old unchanged plural, thing
Plural of Compounds
20.51 In most compounds (whether written as one or as two words) only the final
element takes the plural inflexion: postmen, gentlemen, silver spoons, fountain pens, boy messengers, woman-haters, breakwaters, aƒternoons, etc
It is often difficult to decide whether we have one or two words; hence in some cases both ways of spelling are allowed The first part of a compound may often be considered
an adjunct to the second (8.5, 21.6), and adjuncts are not inflected in the plural; family
names and Christian names are treated grammatically in the same way, though family is a substantive and Christian an adjective
In postmen, gentlemen, etc., the vowel of men is obscured, but in gentle men, which is no compound, it retains its full sound
20.52 When man or woman is the first element and serves to denote the sex of the whole,
both elements take the plural form: men-servants, women writers (cp maid-servants, lady guests, girl friends, with the first element unchanged)
20.53 Combinations like the Johnson children, the Dodson sisters, the Smith brothers
are treated as compounds, but this is not the case when we say the sisters Dodson, the brothers Smith, etc
20.54 With compound titles there is sometimes hesitation, e.g between Lord
Chancellors and Lords Chancellor A title before a name is generally unchanged: two Mr Bertrams
Gonerils, Regans, and Lady Macbeths (Ruskin)
The Miss Browns is a more natural plural form than the Misses Brown
20.55 Handful is treated as one word (note the spelling with one l) and has the plural
handfuls; this is quite natural because a person may have three handfuls of peas, though
he has only two hands; similarly spoonƒuls, basketfuls, mouthfuls; but with less familiar compounds one may inflect the first part of the compound: bucketsfull of tea
Two donkeysful of children (Thackeray)
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Trang 6With other compounds containing an adjective as the last member there is sometimes
hesitation: knights-errant and knighterrants, postmasters-general and generals, courts-martial and court-martials
postmaster-20.56 Compounds containing a preposition or adverb inflect the first element:
sons-in-law, lookers-on, goings-on But if the first part is the base of a verb, the word is generally inflected as a whole: drawbacks, go-betweens Lock-outs is more usual than locks-out The plural of good-for-nothing is good-for-nothings; the reason for this exception to the general rule is obvious: good is an adjective, and goods-for-nothing would suggest a
wrong idea
Pronouns
20.61 While some pronouns are the same in singular and plural, e.g who, what, the, no,
all, and while others are used only in the singular, e.g each, an (a), or only in the plural,
as both, there are some with separate forms for the two numbers:
I we
he, she, it they myself ourselves yourself yourselves himself, herself, itself themselves
this these that those
20.62 In the earlier language thou (thee) was used in addressing one person, and ye (you)
in addressing more than one But, as already remarked (14.5), politeness has led to the
dropping of the forms thou, thee, and ye from ordinary colloquial use, though they have been retained in more solemn language Thus you only survived, and the old distinction between the two numbers is lost (except in yourself, yourselves), but a new way of expressing the plural has developed in those cases in which the use of the form you by itself might be mistaken: you people, you girls, you gentlemen, etc Cp dialectal yous; in the southern part of the United States you-all (with stress on you) is used as a plural of you
The Meaning of Plural
20.71 The meaning of the plural number is obvious in most cases; horses means (one)
horse+(a second) horse+(a third) horse, and so on It is perhaps less obvious that we is not the plural of I in the same way as horses is the plural of horse, for it means I+some one
else or some other people (15.2); you in the plural may sometimes mean several people
addressed at the same time, but it may also mean you (the one person addressed)+one or
several persons to whom one is not speaking just now In about the same way, when we
speak of the sixties, we mean the years 60+61+62…
20.72 The use of the plural is perfectly logical in combinations like the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, the English and French nations, in the third and fourth chapters
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chapter, I have seldom thought it necessary to cite authorities,” and Thackeray, “The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley were never at home together,” where the plural form of the verb shows the plural idea, while son is in the singular, because the form sons might suggest the existence of more than two
In speaking of a married couple we say: “Their married life was a singularly happy one,” but in speaking of two brothers: “Their married lives were led under totally
different circumstances.”
In some set phrases the singular is used even with reference to a plural subject:
Women have a better ear for music than most men
We were afraid that we might catch our death of cold
They lost heart—but in a different sense: they lost their hearts to two sisters
There is nothing strange in saying the Carlyles, when Mr and Mrs Carlyle are meant, but
it is rather strange that it should be possible to say the John Philipses to denote Mr John
Philips with his wife and children, even though none but the father be called John Philips
20.73 Some plurals have acquired meanings which are not found in the corresponding
singulars, e.g
air (of the atmosphere), airs: give yourself airs
bearing (various meanings), bearings: take one’s bearings
colour, colours (flag)
custom, customs (duties)
honour, honours (at cards, and at a University)
letter, letters (learning, literature)
manner, manners (behaviour)
order, orders (take orders, as a clergyman)
pain, pains (take pains)
quarter, quarters (lodgings; headquarters)
spirit, spirits (in two senses, as in “the custom of keeping up spirits by
pouring down spirits”)
writing (handwriting), writings (written works)
20.74 Some words are hardly ever used except in the plural, e.g such names of
composite objects as trousers, spectacles, bowels, whiskers; the names of some games: billiards, draughts, theatricals Note here the use of pair, as in a pair of trousers, of scissors, of spectacles In some words belonging to this category there is a tendency to use the plural form as a new singular: a scissors, a barracks, a golf links, a chemical works Cp also a long innings
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Trang 8NUMBER
Thing-words (countables) and mass-words
(uncountables).—Same word used in both ways.—Plural
mass-words.—Vacilla-tion.—Individualization.—
Collectives.—Special complications.—Higher units.—The
generic number.—Number in secondary words.—First part
of compounds.—Verbs
Mass-Words
21.11 The categories of singular and plural naturally apply to everything that can be
counted; such ‘countables’ are either material beings and things, like girls, horses,
houses, flowers, etc., or immaterial things of various orders, like days, hours, miles, words, sonatas, events, crimes, mistakes, ideas, plans, etc
Let us use the term ‘thing-words’ for all such words, using the word thing in its
widest application But a great many words do not in that way call up the idea of
something possessing a certain shape or precise limits These words are called words’: they stand for something that cannot be counted; such ‘uncountables’ are either
‘mass-material and denote some substance in itself independent of form, for instance silver, quicksilver, water, butter, tea (both the leaves and the fluid), air—or else immaterial, for instance, leisure, music, traffic, success, commonsense, knowledge, and especially many
“nexus-words” formed from verbs, e.g admiration, satisfaction, refinement, or from adjectives, e.g safety, constancy, blindness, idleness
On the meaning of the term “nexus-word,” see 9.7 and xxx
While countables may be “quantified” by means of such words as one, two, many (a great many), ƒew (a few), mass-words cannot take such adjuncts, but may be quantified
by means of much and little Cp also a great many horses—a great deal of money But there are some quantifiers which may be used with both classes: some bird, some birds; some silver; plenty of birds; plenty of leisure
21.12 The distinction between thing-words (countables) and mass-words (uncountables) is easy enough if we look at the idea that is expressed in each single instance But in practical language the distinction is not carried through in such a way that one and the same word stands always for one and the same idea On the contrary, a great many words may in one connexion stand for something countable and in another for something uncountable, see, for instance:
a cake, many cakes much cake two big cheeses a little more cheese
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different feelings he did not show much feeling many experiences much experience
Time is countable in two distinct significations (we had a delightful time|I have been
there four or five times), but it is a mass-word when we say:
I have no time for such nonsense
Lamb is a thing-word when meaning the live animal (two young lambs), but a mass-word when used of meat (lamb or pork, sir?) Fish is used in the same two ways, and that may
be one of the reasons why fish has come to be used as an unchanged plural by the side of
the form fishes (20.4) Compare also: many fruits and much fruit; a few Japanese coins
and pay him back in his own coin
His hair is sprinkled with grey=he has some grey hairs
Shee hath more hair then wit, and more faults then haires (Sh.)
Is your house built of stone or brick?
Many stones (bricks) have gone to the building of that house
Besides meaning a kind of wood as material oak may be used as a mass-word to denote a
mass of live trees; correspondingly with other plant-names:
Oak and beech began to take the place of willow and elm (Stevenson)
A bed of mignonette
Bread is a mass-word (and a loaf may be considered the corresponding thing-word); yet
we may say “I’ve had two breads,” meaning “two portions of bread”; cp two whiskies Verse is a thing-word when we say “some of his verses are not harmonious,” but may also be used as a mass-word: “a book of German verse” (in contrast to prose) Cf “a continual flow of jest and anecdote.”
21.21 From a purely logical point of view we may say that as mass-words denote what cannot be counted, the ideas of singular and plural are not applicable to them; strictly speaking, therefore, they should not have the form of either of these numbers But as a matter of fact, most languages are bound to choose between the two numbers, and mass-words therefore may be divided into the two classes of singular mass-words and plural mass-words To the former class belong all the examples hitherto given; examples of the
second class, mass-words which are plural from a formal point of view, are: sweetmeats, weeds (in a garden), embers, dregs, sweepings; sweets, goods; ashes (cf., however, cigar- ash) Some names of diseases are also plural mass-words: measles, hysterics, rickets—
though we may say “measles is very infectious.”
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Trang 10On the plural mass-word clothes and its relation to cloth, which may be
both a mass-word and a thing-word, see 20.23
21.22 In some cases there is vacillation between a singular and a plural form: victuals is
more common than victual, oats than oat
His wages were not high|how much wages does he get?|a fair wage
Brain and brains: he has no brains or little brains
You cannot take too much pains (20.73)
There is an old singular mean, which is used by Shakespeare in the sense of means, but the original plural means is now used also as a singular: every other means
21.23 The words in -ics, denoting sciences and occupations, are plurals, but are not
infrequently treated as singulars: mathematics, statistics, politics and others: “Politics
doesn’t (or don’t) interest me.”
Furniture is a mass-word, but as there is no corresponding thing-word, we say, for
instance, “not a single piece of furniture”|“two clumsy articles of furniture.”
Corresponding expressions are used with immaterial mass-words to denote individual outcomes of some quality or manner of action:
We must prevent this piece of folly
An insufferable piece of injustice
Two pieces of bad news
Another piece of scandal
The most interesting bits of information
A last word (or piece) of advice
An extraordinary stroke of good luck
An act of perfidy
A matter of common knowledge
Wordsworth speaks of “That best portion of a good man’s life His little, nameless,
unremembered acts Of kindness and of love,” but we may also use the word kindness of
an individual act showing that quality:
I thanked her for this mark of affection, and for all her other kindnesses
towards me (Dickens)
21.32 Business is generally a mass-word, as when we say “business is slack”|“he does a good deal of business with them”|“a still better stroke of business.” But it is a thing-word when it means a particular occupation, or place of business (shop), as in “his happy ideas
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Trang 11would stock twenty ordinary businesses.” It should be mentioned that the word is now
dissociated from the adjective busy and is pronounced in two syllables, while the new word busyness (three syllables) is always a mass-word with the meaning “the quality of
being busy.”
Collectives
21.41 If we look at the meaning of such a word as nation, we see that it denotes a
collection of individuals which are viewed as a unit The same is true of ƒamily, clergy, party, etc Such words are termed collectives As they denote at the same time a plurality
and a unit, they may be said to be doubly countables and thus from a logical point of view form the exact contrast to mass-words: they are at the same time singular and plural, while mass-words are logically neither
Many words which do not themselves denote a plurality of individuals acquire the
meaning of a collective in certain contexts, as when we use the Bench of a body of judges, or speak of a town or village and mean its inhabitants
21.42 The double-sidedness of collectives is shown linguistically in various ways: by the number of the verb and by the pronoun referring to it, as will be seen in the following examples
Collectives treated as singulars:
Mine is an old family
Is it better to have a clergy that marries than one that does not marry?
Each nation must be able to judge for itself
No party which respects itself can be in favour of that measure
Collectives treated as plurals:
All my family are early risers
The clergy were all of them opposed to his proposal
A nation, who lick, yet loathe the hand that waves the sword (Byron)
The police themselves would not credit it
Half the hotel were scandalized at her
Your sex are not thinkers (George Eliot)
The Government congratulated themselves on the result of the election Sometimes even good writers treat a collective in the same sentence as a singular and as a plural:
The Garth family, which was rather a large one, for Mary had four brothers and one sister, were very fond of their old house (George Eliot)
Nodding their heads before her goes the merry minstrelsy (Coleridge)
The note that catches a public who think with their boots and read with their elbows (Kipling)
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Trang 1221.43 While nation is always treated like an ordinary collective, its synonym people, though still used in the same way (a people who hate us|two different peoples), has come
to be also used in a somewhat different way as a kind of plural of person: people say|one
or two people might drop in|many people
21.44 This way of counting the individuals that go to make the collective is found occasionally with other collectives, though the usage is not established in the same way
as with people:
Twenty police
The church with its twenty-eight thousand clergy
A fly can give birth to a million offspring
A few cattle
As troop means “a body of soldiers,” it may be used in the plural with a numeral in the
same signification, but it may also be used with higher numerals counting the individuals composing the troops Macaulay thus writes “He scattered two troops of rebel horse,” but
in a subsequent passage, “The King’s forces consisted of about two thousand five hundred regular troops.”
21.45 Some words present special complications Thus youth may mean (1) young age: in his youth he was a teetotaller; (2) young people collectively, with plural or singular construc tion: such privilege has youth, that cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts (Wordsw.)|among the British youth his contemporaries; (3) a young man; twenty youths
Similarly acquaintance: (1) I hope to make his acquaintance; (2) his acquaintance give
him a very different character (Goldsm., now rare); (3) one of my friends or acquaintances
Though an enemy always refers to a single hostile being, the enemy may be used with
a plural verb in the sense “the hostile forces”:
The enemy were retiring
21.46 English has a faculty unparalleled in other languages of turning numerals, either by themselves or in conjunction with primary words, into a new kind of collectives by
creating higher units, which are treated as substantives in the singular Thus we speak of
a cricket eleven and of another college eight Such words, of conrse, may be put in the
plural:
Two cricket elevens
For many tens of thousands of years
They came by twos and threes
Three nines make twenty-seven
In cases like these a Chinese grammarian says that “English commonsense has triumphed over grammatical nonsense.”
21.47 In the same way a whole group of words containing a numeral may be treated as
a singular meaning a unity of a higher order The unification may be shown
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Trang 13grammatically either by the form of the verb or by an adjunct in the singular, or by both
in the same sentence:
Examples:
Forty yards is a good distance
Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble? (Sh.)
I want a receipt for that two hundred pounds
I stayed there for one short seven days
The second six months seemed to him much longer than the first
No two natures were ever more unlike than those of Dryden and Pope
Every five minutes (18.32)
A special case of unification is seen in compounds with pence: a sixpence, with its plural sixpences We must also mention a fortnight, from fourteen night, and a twelvemonth: night and month are old unchanged plurals
The Generic Number
21.5 An assertion about a ‘whole species or class—equally applicable to each member of
the class—can, of course, be made by means of every (every man, every cat), any (any man, any cat), or all with the plural (all men, all cats) Very often, however, the generic
character is not thus expressly indicated, but implied, and curiously enough language for that purpose uses now the singular, now the plural, now a definite and now an indefinite form, as will be seen in the following synopsis:
(1) the singular without any article: man is mortal;
(2) the singular with the indefinite article: a cat has nine lives;
(3) the singular with the definite article: the dog is vigilant;
(4) the plural without any article: dogs are vigilant;
(5) the plural with the definite article: the English are fond of out-door sports
21.51 The singular without any article is used with mass-words—material and immaterial, see:
Lead is heavier than iron
Blood is thicker than water
Time and tide wait for no man
Art is long, life is short
History is often stranger than fiction
True Love in this differs from gold and clay
That to divide is not to take away (Shelley)
But with names of living beings this way of implying the generic character is found with
two words only, man and woman
Man used generically may reter to all mankind without any regard to sex:
The proper study of mankind is Man (Pope)
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Trang 14God made the country, and man made the town (Cowper)
His arms were long, like prehistoric man’s
But man may also be used in contrast to woman generically:
Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither (Sh.)
Man is the head, but woman turns it
Woman is best when she is at rest (or, more colloquially, A woman…)
21.52 When the indefinite article is used generically with a substantive in the singular, it
may be considered a weaker any:
An owl cannot see well in the daytime
An oak is hardier than a beech
21.53 When the definite article is used with a singular in this generic signification, it may
be said to denote the typical representative of the class:
The owl cannot see well in the daytime
The early bird catches the worm
The Child is father of the Man (Wordsworth)
This form is very frequent, though it may in many cases be ambiguous, for “the origin of
the ballad” may refer either to ballads in general or to the special ballad we are just
discussing
The definite article is found in this way before adjectives, especially in philosophic
parlance, when the Beautiful means everything that is beautiful Other examples in 8.3
21.54 Generic plural without an article is very frequent:
Owls cannot see well in the daytime
Be yee therefore wise as serpents and harmeless as doves (AV.)
But it should be noted that men used in this way nearly always refers to males (as man in
the second employment mentioned above, 21.51):
Men were deceivers ever (Sh.)
I am studying men, she said In our day this is the proper study of
womankind
21.55 The plural with the definite article in the generic sense is nowadays used chiefly
with adjectives: “the old are apt to catch cold” (=old people are…) See 8.32
Substantives in the plural with the definite article are used in scientific or scientific descriptions to indicate more definitely than the forms mentioned above that the whole species is meant:
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21.56 Note also the use of both numbers in relative clauses to denote a whole class: he
that touches pitch (or they that, or those who, touch pitch; or, whoever touches pitch) will
be defiled
Number in Secondary Words
21.61 The notions of singularity and plurality properly belong to primaries only, but not
to secondaries But many languages make their adjuncts agree in number with the
primaries In English this is the case with this and that only: these boys; those boys (cf also the quantifiers: he has much money and many friends She had a little coffee and a few biscuits) In the great majority of cases adjuncts have the same form, whether they
belong to a singular or to a plural primary; see, for instance:
My black coat My black trousers
The other beautiful poem The other beautiful poems
A little child Little children
What a fool! What fools!
Hence it is possible in English (but not in those languages which require agreement in such combinations) to apply one and the same adjunct to two words of different number:
My wife and children (French: ma femme et mes enfants)
He wore the same coat and trousers as last year
21.62 In the first part of compounds the general rule is to use the singular form, even if the conception is naturally plural (It should be remembered that the first part of a
compound is really a kind of adjunct.) Thus we have six shilling books|a five pound note|a seuenty-mile drive|sixpenny magazines, etc., and similarly from words not used in the singular form when standing by themselves: oatmeal, a billiard table
This rule, however, is not absolute There are exceptions, chiefly in modern compounds, and especially if there is no singular in use or if the plural form is scarcely
felt as such: trousers-pocket is found alongside with trouser-pocket; pains-taking; a clothes brush; a customs officer; a two-thirds majority; a savings-bank; the Parcels Delivery Company
In some cases the reason for the use of the form in s is obviously the desire to avoid
misunderstanding; thus in a goods-train; a Greats tutor (Greats, an Oxford examination); the seconds-hand of a watch
21.63 Note the old compounds two pennyworth, six penny-worth (often pronounced
[penəp]), in which pennyworth may be considered an invariable substantive But twopenceworth may also be found An engine of fifty horse power is originally to be analysed as a compound of fifty-horse and power, but now it is practically fifty+an invariable compound horsepower
Number 167
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Trang 1621.64 With genitival compounds there is some difficulty in the spelling; the general
rule is to spell a bird’s nest (although it may, and usually does, contain more than one bird), but in the plural birds’ nests; similarly, his tailor’s bill, but their tailors’ bills, a printer’s error, but many printers’ errors; ladies’ (or lady’s) maids In such cases the
sound is the same, and the differentiation in spelling is artificial But where there is a difference in pronunciation, we may find such anomalies as “he is always communicative
in a man’s party” (Thackeray), where the singular party induces the singular form in man, and inversely “in her men’s clothes she looked tall.” A woman’s college
Verbs
21.71 No distinction is made in verbs between the two numbers except in the present tense, and there it is found in the third person only, which in the singular ends generally
in s; for details see 23.14
In the preterit we have the solitary example was, plural were; in all other verbs the plural is like the singular: I went, we went
21.72 It should be noted that singular and plural in verbs has nothing at all to do with
the verbal idea: when we say “birds sing” with the plural form of sing (cp the singular: a bird sings) this does not denote several acts of singing, but is only a meaningless
grammatical contrivance showing the dependence of the verb on its subject It is therefore really superfluous to have separate forms in the verb for the two numbers, and English has lost nothing in clearness, but has gained in ease, through the dropping of nearly all the forms that in former stages of the language distinguished the two numbers in verbs
21.73 As for the use of the plural form where it is distinct from the singular, no difficulty is felt in most of the cases in which the subject is itself in the plural or consists
of two or more words joined by means of and, e.g
There are more things in heauen and earth, Horatio,
Then are dream’d of in your philosophy (Sh.)
Time and tide wait for no man
21.74 But when the two joined words form one conception, the verb is put in the singular, as in
Accuracy and precision is a more important quality of language than
abundance (N.B one quality, not two)
The sapper and miner was at work (one person; Dickens)
Here we may quote also:
Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh (Sh.)
Sometimes, when the singular is used, the reason is that only one of the ideas was present
in the speaker’s or writer’s mind at the time, as in
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Trang 17Is Bushy, Green and the Earl of Wiltshire dead? (Sh.)
21.75 As subordination expressed by with means practically the same thing as
co-ordination with and, writers sometimes use the plural in sentences like the following: Don Alphonso, With other gentlemen of good esteeme Are journying
(Sh.)
This, of course, is blamed by grammarians, but in the predicative the plural is established
in “He is great friends with Henry,” etc
21.76 When two words in the singular are connected by means of or (nor) grammarians prefer the verb in the singular:
Neither Coleridge nor Southey is a good reader of verse (De Quincey)
But as the idea is often addition rather than separation, there is good excuse for those
writers who use the plural, e.g
Snuff or the fan supply each pause of chat (Pope)
Without that labour, neither reason, art; nor peace, are possible to man
(Ruskin)
Cf 21.42, on the plural after collectives
21.77 Usage wavers in arithmetical formulas: What are (or is) twice three? Six and six is
(or are) twelve
There is also a natural hesitation when is or are is to be placed between two words of
different number:
Fools are my theme (Byron;=My theme is fools)
Manners is a fine thing (Swift)
The stars were our only guide
Our only guide was the stars
Number 169
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Trang 18DEGREE
Positive, comparative and superlative.—Regular forms.—
Irregularities.—More and most.—Meaning.—Superiority,
equality and inferiority.—Seeming comparatives.—
Gradual increase.—Parallel increase.—Weakened
comparatives.—Higher degree than the positive.—Too.—
Prefer.—Superlative.—Superlative in speaking of two.—
Limited superlative.—Most.—Latin comparatives
Forms
22.11 From a formal point of view we have two degrees of comparison in adjectives and
adverbs, namely, Comparative and Superlative The regular way of forming them is by
adding the endings -er and -est to the ground-form, which is called Positive, e.g
Positive Comparative Superlative
small smaller smallest soon sooner soonest
Merely orthographic peculiarities are seen when y after a consonant is changed into i, when a consonant is doubled after a short vowel, and when a mute e disappears, e.g
dry drier driest happy happier happiest thin thinner thinnest big bigger biggest free freer freest polite politer politest
The following phonetic modifications should be noted:
An r regains its consonantal value before the endings:
dear dearer dearest poor poorer poorest
Syllabic [l] becomes non-syllabic:
simple simpler simplest
The sound of [g] appears after [ŋ], written ng:
strong stronger strongest
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Trang 19This change is found in strong, long and young, the only adjectives of that form, whose degrees of comparison are really living; in occasional new-formations like cunninger, cunningest, [ŋ] only is sounded
22.12 In the following words we have survivals of earlier phonetic modifications:
old elder eldest late latter last nigh near next
But on account of the irregularities of these forms the connexion between them has been loosened, and various new forms have come into existence
Elder and eldest have been largely supplanted by older and oldest, and are now chiefly
used preceded by some determining word (genitive, possessive pronoun or article); they
generally refer to persons connected by relationship; note, however, the substantive elder with the plural elders Older must be used when followed by than or when than can easily be supplied (in these cases Elizabethans still could use elder):
My eldest son is called John, after my eldest brother
Pliny the elder
The elder brother, who was much older than Frank
Ann is old, but her sister is older still
22.13 As a real comparative and superlative corresponding to late, later and latest are
now always used Latter is used in contrast to ƒormer and, further, in such connexions as these latter days, latter-day saints, the latter part (or half) of the century Last is the opposite of first (these two mark the beginning and end of a series), or it may be used of
the period immediately preceding the one in which we are now or of which we are now
speaking (Last Wednesday; for the last ƒew years: here opposed to next) Latest has not the same element of finality as last; it is opposed to all the earlier:
Mr G.’s latest book, which we hope will not be his last
The old Archbishop breathed his last yesterday morning
At last he went away
You must be there at the latest at five (=not later than five)
(But: Have you heard Mr N.’s last?=his latest joke.)
22.14 Nigh is now obsolete (together with the analogical formations nigher and nighest)
Near has ceased to be a comparative, and from such applications as Come near! has come
to mean the same thing as the old nigh, so that even a new comparative and superlative have been formed: nearer and nearest Next is now completely isolated and means
immediately following or close to:
I shall start next Friday (next year, etc.)
What next?
He lives next door
It is next to impossible (On next best, see 22.75.)
Degree 171
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Trang 2022.21 In the following irregular cases we have really no positive corresponding to the comparative and superlative, which are formed from independent roots:
(good, well) better best (bad, evil, ill) worse worst (little) less least (much, many) more most (far) farther, further farthest, furthest
Worse may occasionally be the comparative of such adjectives as dreadful, vile, wretched, wrong, etc.—the essential thing is that it is the opposite of better
22.22 Worse and less are the only comparatives in the language that do not end in -r;
therefore the popular instinct seized on them and added the usual ending -er But while worser, which was formerly frequent (for instance in Sh.), has gone out of polite use, lesser still lives, and a differentiation has taken place, so that less generally refers to quantity and is opposite to more, while lesser refers to size and especially to value or importance; lesser is more literary than less
The later you come, the less time will there be for discussion
More glory will be wonn, or less be lost (Milton)
The Lesser Bear The Lesser Prophets
Cowley was one of the lesser poets of the period
Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions matched with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine (Tennyson)
I have not the least inclination to yield to him
Not the least of his merits was his work in the slums
Before than, and adverbially, lesser is never used:
In less than half an hour
The last comer, who turned out to be no less a person than the Prime Minister
Less acute men would have noticed nothing
Littler and littlest may occasionally be found:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear (Sh.)
Note the combination: the least little drop
22.23 Both farther, ƒarthest and further, furthest may be used of distance in space and
time; but in the derived sense, “in addition, besides, to a greater extent,” the form with u
is preferred:
We may go further and say…
On further inquiry we found out the entire truth
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Trang 21Cf furthermore
22.31 Comparatives in -er and superlatives in -est are formed freely from
monosyllables and from words of two syllables ending in a vocalic sound (e.g pretty,
narrow, clever) or iu syllabic l (22.1), or else having the stress on the last syllable (polite,
severe) They are also formed from such frequently used adjectives as handsome, quiet, pleasant But with all longer words, especially if ending in a hard group of consonants, these endings are avoided, and comparison is effected by means of preposed more and most; this is even the case with some short words Thus we have:
ridiculous more ridiculous most ridiculous difficult more difficult most difficult real more real most real right more right most fight
Similarly with words like elementary, peculiar, etc
Sometimes the superlative in -est is in frequent use (correctest, solidest, stupidest), while the comparative in -er is rarer With many words the preference for one or the other
way of forming the degrees of comparison depends on individual taste
Words indicating nationality never take the endings -er and -est; always more (most) French, etc.; similarly Roman
22.32 With regard to compounds, we form such comparatives and superlatives as:
well-known better-known best-known hard-working harder-working hardest-working
and similarly a better-hearted fellow and the dullest-witted boy, but in other cases more
or most is preferred, e.g more old-ƒashioned, the most good-natured
The most far-fetched arguments for the most short-sighted policy
22.33 There is a decided tendency to use more if the comparison is not between two persons or things, but between the same person or thing at two different times:
Every month I become a year more old (Kipling)
Her voice grew more gentle, more low
The -er form will, however, be used in such familiar cases as:
The patient feels better, though the temperature is higher [than yesterday]
22.34 When two qualities of the same person or thing are compared, the rule is to use
more:
His mother was more kind than intelligent
But in speaking of two dimensions, we may say, e.g
Degree 173
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Trang 22The windows were much wider than they were high
22.4 With regard to adverbs, the same rules for the use of the endings -er and -est or
more or most prevail as for adjectives, e.g
soon sooner soonest
She works harder than her husband
The man who stayed longest and spoke loudest
beautifully more beautifully most beautifully
By the side of more easily the shorter form easier may be used, especially in the familiar
phrase:
This is easier said than done
On the other hand, some writers are fond of such adverbs as kindlier, clearlier, plainlier,
1 Superiority: more dangerous (better) than
2 Equality: as dangerous (as good) as
3 Inferiority: less dangerous (less good) than
Obviously 1 and 3 are closely connected as indicating inequality and requiring than,
while 2 requires as, before the second member of comparison
Comparisons with less are not very frequent; instead of less dangerous than, we often say not so dangerous as, and whenever there are two adjectives of opposite meaning, we say, for instance, weaker than rather than less strong than
22.52 Some adjectives and adverbs are on account of their meaning incapable of
comparison, e.g several, half, daily, own, future Others, which strictly speaking should
seem incapable of being put in the comparative or superlative, are used thus in a slightly
modified meaning: more perfect and most perfect really mean “nearer and nearest to perfection.” Similarly fuller, fullest
22.53 Some adjectives are seemingly comparatives, being formed in -er from particles
(which cannot be used as adjectives): inner, outer, upper That these are not real comparatives is seen by the impossibility of using than with them But real superlatives are formed from them: inmost, outmost, upmost; with these should be classed some superlatives in -most from sub-stantives: topmost, headmost (rare), backmost, eastmost
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Trang 23(more usual easternmost), and others There are also some superlatives in -ermost from the above-mentioned forms: innermost, upprmost, etc., cp bettermost
Utter is an old formation from out (with the vowel shortened as in latter); it has lost its local meaning and now denotes degree: utter darkness, an utter scoundrel Utmost has kept more of its local meaning (the utmost edge, etc.), but is also chiefly used of degree: with the utmost care, etc
22.61 To indicate a gradual increase we use two comparatives connected with and: Conditions are getting worse and worse every day
He became more and more eloquent towards the end of his speech
Poets will vary this figure:
The piper loud and louder blew,
The dancers quick and quicker flew (Burns)
I grow bolder and still more bold (Shelley)
22.62 To indicate a parallel increase in two mutually dependent cases the…the is used;
the is an old instrumental of that, meaning “by so much.” Generally the determinant is
placed before the determined:
The more he reads, the less he understands
The longer he stayed, the more sullen he became
The noisier they were, the better was their mother pleased
Sometimes that is inserted in the determinant clause:
The more that was known about the incident, the more indignant people became
The determinant clause may be·put last:
They liked the book better the more it made them cry (Goldsmith)
We have a corresponding use of the before a comparative in cases like
I like him all the better on account of his shyness
“He won’t come.” “So much the better The more fool he.”
The young people were plainly the worse for drink
22.63 A comparative may sometimes be used though the idea of comparison is not very
prominent: the younger generation; the higher criticism, etc “You had better stay”=“it
will be good for you to stay.” The idea of comparison is often particularly weak in
rather: “It’s rather warm today.”
Degree 175
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Trang 2422.64 It is very important to keep in mind that the comparative does not mean a higher degree of the quality in question than the positive does in itself: “Peter is older than John” does not imply that Peter is old, and the comparative may therefore really indicate a lesser degree than the positive would in “Peter is old.” Nor does it, of course, say anything about John’s being old—if this is meant, we say “Peter is still older than John.”
22.65 On the other hand, such a combination as more than kind means that kind is an
inadequate expression and thus criticizes the use of the simple term kind:
She was more than old-fashioned, she was antediluvian
You’re worse than unfair You’re ungenerous—you’re mean
Compare also: They are all kinder than kind
A similar use is found with more than before a verb:
The boy more than justified the favourable opinion they had formed of him
It was a moonless night, but the brilliancy of the stars more than made
up for the want of moonshine
22.66 We have what might be termed a latent comparative in the word too, which means
“in a higher degree than enough or than is allowable or advisable”:
I am afraid we shall be too late for dinner
This is too good to be true
Too much and too little of a good thing spoils it
The comparative meaning is weakened in the colloquial:
I am only too glad (too delighted) to do this for you
22.67 Another latent comparative is contained in the verb prefer (=“like better”) This is
normally followed by to (as the Latin comparatives, see 22.9):
I prefer claret to sherry
But occasionally the character of a comparative may induce the use of than after prefer, thus to avoid clashing with another to in:
And you preferred to go to a moneylender than to come to me? (Galsworthy)
22.71 The superlative does not indicate a higher degree than the comparative, but really states the same degree, only looked at from a different point of view If we compare the ages of four boys, A, B, C, and D, we may state the same fact in two different ways:
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Trang 25A is older than the other boys, or
A is the oldest boy
In both cases A is compared with B, C, and D; but the result is in the former case given with regard to these three (the other boys), in the latter with regard to all the boys, A included The comparative must thus be supplemented by a member expressed by means
of than or understood The superlative, on the other hand, is often followed by of or among all But as both forms really express the same idea, we should not be surprised to
find a confusion (pretty frequent in older writers), resulting in such blendings as
A king, whose memory of all others we most adore (Bacon)
Parents are the last of all others to be trusted with the education of their
own children (Swift)
22.72 Another blending occurs when the singular is used where we should expect the
plural after of: as the best temper and the best of tempers mean the same thing, many
people will say and write:
He was evidently not in the best of temper (or health)
People taking the gentlest of exercise
This is particularly frequent with words that are seldom or never used in the plural number
22.73 When there is no direct comparison (with than), some grammarians—in accordance with Latin syntax—insist on the use of the comparative if two, and the superlative if more than two are referred to:
The better part of valour is discretion (Sh.)
Rome of Cæsar, Rome of Peter, which was crueller? which was worse (Tennyson)
But apart from such set phrases as the lower lip, the upper end, the lower classes, the
natural tendency in English is to use the superlative in speaking of two:
Put your best leg foremost
Whose God is strongest, thine or mine? (Milton)
We’ll see who is strongest, you or I (Goldsmith)
22.74 It is a natural consequence of the nature of the superlative that it is most often used preceded by a defining word:
The richest man in the town
My youngest boy
Thackeray’s best novel
That best part of a good man’s life,
Degree 177
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Trang 26His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love (Wordsworth)
There you may see England at its best—and in its best
Still, a superlative may be used after any or no:
On any smallest occasion (=any, even the smallest)
Football, or any other roughest sport
Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant (Carlyle)
22.75 The superlative may be limited by some addition like:
The next best (=better than all the others with the exception of one)
St Paul’s is the third longest cathedral in Christendom
The largest but one (but two, three, etc.)
22.81 In consequence of the almost universal tendency to exaggerate, people will often use the superlative where they mean only a very high degree, as in
I should do it with the greatest pleasure
22.82 This leads to the use of most as a strengthened very before an adjective Here most
is no longer a real superlative and is distinguished from real superlatives by being used (1) with the indefinite article, and (2) in the predicative without an article:
The Bishop is a most learned gentleman
This procedure is most dangerous
Compare also the colloquial:
This is most awfully kind of you
More may mean “a greater number of (people),” and most “the greatest number of (people),” e.g.:
More people go to London than to any other place in Europe
Most young Englishmen are fond of outdoor sports
Note, in consequence of what has been said above, the following expressions:
(1) I got to know most respectable people in the town (=the greatest number of
respectable people)
(2) I got to know the most respectable people in the town (superlative of respectable)
(3) I got to know some most respectable people in the town (=some highly respectable) With a shorter adjective this would correspond to
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Trang 27(1) I got to know most (of the) kind people in the town
(2) I got to know the kindest people in the town
(3) I got to know some most kind people in the town
22.83 In the idiomatic:
He was not best pleased to see us—
we have another example of a superlative, which has come to mean only a very high degree
22.9 Some adjectives are taken from Latin comparatives: anterior, interior, inferior,
superior, major, minor When they are used with the force of comparatives, they do not take than, but to: prior to the war, inferior to other brands, etc When used as substantives, they are combined with the genitive: John’s superiors=“those that are
higher (in office) than John.’ But very often they have nothing left of the comparative
meaning: These cigars are very inferior indeed
From Latin superlatives we have, e.g extreme, supreme But they are not superlatives
in English, and nothing hinders us from forming a superlative and saying: with the extremest care
Degree 179
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Trang 28TENSE
Time and tense.—Past, present and future time with
subdivisions.—Tenses of English verbs.—Present tense.—
Formation of preterit.—Tense-phrases.—Perfect and
pluperfect.—Expanded tenses.—Use of the present
tense.—Present time.—Past time.—Futuretime.—
Auxiliaries of the perfect and pluperfect.—Old and
modern use of be.—Inclusive time.—I have got.—Use of
the preterit and perfect.—Used to.—Preterit for
before-past time.—The pluperfect.—Infinitive.—Imperative.—
Participles.—Second participle.—Perfect participle.—
Gerund
23.11 It is important to keep the two concepts time and tense strictly apart The former is common to all mankind and is independent of language; the latter varies from language to language and is the linguistic expression of time-relations, so far as these are indicated in verb forms In English, however, as well as in many other languages, such forms serve not only for time-relations, but also for other purposes; they are also often inextricably confused with marks for person and mood
Time is universally conceived as something having one dimension only, thus capable
of being represented by one straight line We may arrange the main divisions in the following way:
A: past B: present C: future
Or, rather, we may say that time is divided into two parts, the past and the future, the point of division being the present moment, which, like a mathematical point, has no dimension, but is continually fleeting (moving to the right in our figure)
23.12 Under each of the two divisions of infinite time we may refer to some point as lying either before or after the main point of which we are actually speaking In this way
we get the following seven points:
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Trang 29The subordinate “times” are thus orientated with regard to some point in the past (Ab) and in the future (Cb) exactly as the main times (A and C) are orientated with regard to the present moment (B)
After-future may be left out of account as having practically no grammatical expression
23.13 We shall now consider the tenses actually found in English verbs It would be conducive to clearness to have two sets of terms, one for notional time, and the other for grammatical tense This, however, is not easily accomplished except for section A, where
we can use the term past for the time division, and preterit for the tense found, e.g in
was, drank, called; for the other sections we have no simple terms and must therefore say
‘present time’ and ‘present tense,’ ‘future time’ (or ‘futurity’) and ‘future tense,’
whenever there is any fear of misunderstanding
The English verb has only two tenses proper, the Present and the Preterit
23.14 The Present tense is identical with the base of the verb (7.6) To this is added,
on the one hand, -(e)st in the obsolete thou-form of the second person singular (thou goest, doest or dost, wishest, drinkst or drinkest; irregular: art, hast, shalt, wilt)—on the
other hand, the s-ending with its three phoitetic forms (4.6, 5.63, cf 14.62) in the third
person singular:
[iz] after hissing sounds: kisses, praises, wishes, judges
[z] after voiced sounds: goes, sends, begs, ploughs, lives
[s] after voiceless sounds: beats, takes, coughs
Irregular: says [sez] from say [sei]
does [dΛz] from do [du·]
has [hæz] from have [hæv]
is [iz] from be [bi·], I am [æm]
The old ending was -th: kisseth, saith, doth or doeth, hath
Some verbs form a class apart as auxiliaries; they have neither infinitive nor
participles and add no s in the third person singular of the present tense: can, may, must, will, shall; need and dare, which sometimes, but not always, add s, are related to this
class (32.15) On ought see 24.33
Tense 181
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Trang 3023.2 The Preterit is formed in various ways; as its form is in most verbs either
identical with, or closely similar to the second participle, it will be convenient here to treat the two together
In all regular verbs—a great many old ones, and all recently formed or recently borrowed from other languages—the Preterit and the (second) Participle are formed by the addition of the “weak” ending, which has three phonetic forms according to the final
sound of the base (4.6):
[id] after [d] and [t]: ended, rested;
[d] after voiced sounds other than [d]: gathered gæðəd], called, screwed, managed;
[t] after voiceless sounds other than [t]: locked hopped, kissed, coughed, wished
The chief irregularities may be classed as follows:
(1) d is added, but the vowel of the base is changed:
say [sei]—said [sed]
flee—fied
hear [hiə]—heard [hə·d]
sell—sold; thus also tell—told
(2) d is added, and the consonant of the base is omitted:
have—had
make—made
can—could; will—would; shall—should; these three verbs have no
participle
(3) t is added in some verbs
after n: burn—burnt, learn—learnt, pen—pent
after l: dwell—dwelt, smell—smelt, spell—spelt, spill—spilt, spoil—
spoilt
Spoil in the sense of “plunder” is a different verb, which is regular
(4) t is added, but d disappears before it:
bend—bent, lend—lent, rend—rent, send—sent, spend—spent, build—
built, gird—girt
Gilt is an adjective, while the preterit and participle of gild are regular: gilded
(5) t is added, the vowel of the base is changed:
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Trang 31deal [di·l]—dealt [delt], dream—dreamt, feel—felt, kneel—knelt, lean—
leant, mean—meant
creep—crept, keep—kept, leap—leapt, sleep—slept
Before this t, a v is naturally changed into f: leave—left, bereave—bereft (or bereaved), cleave—cleft (or cleaved, “split”)
may—might; this verb has no participle
dare—durst; this form is obsolete, and dared has taken its place; cf
32.15
(7) Some bases ending in d or t are unchanged in the Preterit and Participle
rid, shed, spread
burst, cast, cost, cut, hit, hurt, let, put, set, shut, slit, split, sweat, thrusl
must; this verb has no participle; on the preterit, see 24.67
Sweat is often regular, thus always in the sense of paying workers very badly Americans say quit for British quitted Both broadcast and broadcasted are used in the Preterit, in the Participle generally only broadcast Similarly, forecasted is found by the side of ƒorecast
(8) In other verbs ending in d and t the vowel is changed:
bleed [bli·d]—bled [bled], breed—bred, feed—fed, lead—led, read—read, speed—sped
Trang 329) In the following verbs, too, we have vowel change without any addition; the same vowel is found in Preterit and Participle
ring—rang—rung; thus also sing and spring
drink—drank—drunk; thus also shrink, sink and stink
run—ran—run
come—came—come
(11) The Participle ends in n:
blow—blew—blown; thus also grow, know and throw
Trang 33strive—strove—striven; thus also thrive
weave—wove—woven
bid—bad(e)—bidden or bid
forbid—forbad(e)—forbidden
ride—rode—ridden; thus also stride
hide—hid—hidden or hid; thus also chide
take—took—taken; thus also forsake and shake
wake besides woke—woken has also waked and in the Participle woke; awake makes awoke or awaked, but has no Participle in n There is also a regular verb waken
In the old language there was a good deal of uncertainty with regard to the keeping or
dropping of the final -en; cp., e.g Milton’s New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large Shakespeare has chose, broke, spoke by the side of chosen, broken, spoken, etc
A remainder of this vacillation is still seen in broke (“ruined,” financially) by the side
of broken
There is a tendency to use forms in -en preferably before a substantive: “He is drunk—
a drunken plebeian” (Dickens)
(12) The Participle has two forms, in -d and in -n
hew—hewed—hewed, hewn; thus also strew
saw—sawed—sawed, sawn
—mowed—mowed, nown; thus also show and sow; sew,
pronounced [sou] in spite of the spelling
shear—sheared—shorn, rarely sheared
Some verbs by the side of the regular forms in -d have participles in -n, which are specially used as adjuncts before substantives: carven images, a well-shaven chin, swollen glands
(13) Two verbs form their Preterits from a different root altogether:
be, am, is, are—was, were—been
go—went—gone
Tense 185
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Trang 34Tense-Phrases
23.31 Besides the two uncompounded tenses, Present and Preterit, we must recognize
two tense-phrases, namely, the Perfect, formed by means of the present tense of the
auxiliary have+the second participle: I have written, he has written, etc., and the
Pluperfect, formed by the preterit of the same auxiliary and the second participle: I had
written, he had written, etc
These tense-phrases go back to very old times Originally have here had its full meaning “possess, hold”: I have caught the fish=“I hold (have) the fish as caught” (cp
the modern “There, I have you beaten”) Afterwards this meaning was lost sight of, and
have came to be a mere grammatical instrument (auxiliary) to mark time-relation; thus it became possible to use it with all kinds of verbs, even those in which have as originally used would give no sense: I have lost (thrown away, forgotten, seen) the key With intransitive verbs, too, have is now the usual auxiliary, but formerly I am come, I am
become, etc., was used very extensively (23.5)
23.32 By the side of these tenses and tense-phrases we have expanded forms:
the Expanded Present: am writing,
the Expanded Preterit: was writing,
the Expanded Perfect: have been writing,
the Expanded Pluperfect: had been writing
On the use of the expanded forms, see 24.7
On the use of will and shall to denote future time, see ch xxv
Use of the Present Tense
23.41 The Present Tense is first used about the present time
In the strict sense as a point without any dimension the present has little practical value, and in the practice of all languages “now” means a time with appreciable duration, the length of which varies greatly according to circumstances, the only thing required being that the theoretical zero-point falls within the period alluded to This applies to cases like:
He is hungry|he is ill|he is dead
It rains
She plays wonderfully well (cp She is playing wonderfully well, 24.7)
Our children eat very little meat
We call him the Nabob He earns five thousand a year
Some people prefer music-halls to the opera
Twice two is four Gold is heavier than silver
Twelve pence go to a shilling, and twenty shillings go to a pound, but where all the pounds go to, I have never been able to discover
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Trang 35The evill that men do, lives after them; The good is oft enterred with their bones (Sh.)
All men are lyers (AV.)
None but the brave deserves the fair (Dryden)
These examples show a gradual transition from what is more or less momentary to
“eternal truths” or what are supposed to be such If the present tense is used, it is because the sentences are valid now; the linguistic tense-expression says nothing about the length
of duration before or after the present moment The definition given above covers the whole range of sentences adduced, as well as expressions of intermittent occurrences like:
I get up every morning at seven (even if spoken in the evening)
The steamer leaves every Tuesday in winter, but in summer both on Tuesdays and Fridays (the present moment falls within the limits of what
is spoken about, for the saying concerns the present arrangement)
A peculiar use of the Present Tense is found in statements of what may be found at all times by readers:
It says in the Bible, “Thou shalt not steal.”
Milton defends the liberty of the press in his Areopagitica
A related usage is found in “I hear (I am told, I see in the papers) that the King is ill.” The proper meaning of I forget is “I cease to remember, it drops out of my memory,” but it is frequently used as a kind of negative to I remember, thus it is really identical
with “I have forgotten”: I forget how old he is
23.42 Next, the Present tense is used in speaking of the past This is the so-called
“historic Present” (a better name would be the “dramatic Present”), which is pretty frequent in con-nected narrative: the speaker, as it were, forgets all about time and recalls what he is recounting as vividly as if it were now present before his eyes Very often, this Present alternates with the Preterit Examples:
He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard; then goes he to the length of all his arme; And with his other hand thus o’er his brow, He fals to such perusall of my face, As he would draw it Long staid he so (Sh.)
I stepped up to the copper “If you please, sir,” says I, “can you direct
me to Carrickmines Square?” “I never heard of any such Square in these parts,” he says “Then,” says I, “what a very silly little officer you must be!”; and I gave his helmet a chuck that knocked it over his eyes, and did
Trang 36I start for Italy on Monday next
We dine to-morrow with the Cannings
“Have you been long in England?” “Only a couple of days.” “How long do you stay?”
Note the alternation with will and shall:
To-morrow I leave England You will never see me again This is the last time I shall ever look on you
In clauses after conjunctions of time this use of the Present tense is the rule, because futurity is sufficiently indicated in the main verb:
Shall there be gallowes standing in England when thou art king? (Sh.)
When at last the end comes, it will come quietly and fitly
Note the difference between the two clauses in:
We do not know when he will come, but when he comes he will not find
us ungrateful
We have the same use of the Present tense in conditional clauses:
Will you come for a walk in the afternoon if it does not rain? I don’t know
if it will rain, but if it does, I shall stay at home
When and if in those of the clauses here mentioned which contain will are interrogative conjunctions, not conjunctions of time and condition as they are in those in which will is
I shall let you know as soon as I hear from him
Correspondingly with before and till:
I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it (Sh.)
Wait till the train stops
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Trang 37Auxiliaries of the Perfect and Pluperfect
23.51 As already stated, the Perfect and Pluperfect are now regularly formed by means of
the Present and Preterit of have with the second participle But formerly the auxiliary be was extensively used with verbs of movement, e.g
A foolish thing is just come into my head (Swift, now has)
He was now got to a little copse (Scott, now had)
Mr Harley was gone out (Swift, now had)
The ladies are not here, they are walked down the garden (Defoe, now
have)
Silence is become his mother-tongue (Goldsmith, now has)
Nowadays, a distinction is made, so that the combination with has is a real perfect, but that with is is a pure present He is come means “he has come and is now here.” While he has gone calls up the idea of movement, he is gone emphasizes the idea of a state
(condition) and is the equivalent of “he is absent, he is not here (there).” Hence the use,
e.g in
I shall be gone before you wake in the morning—
and especially with the indication of the length of absence:
He was gone but a little time
Don’t be gone too long!
The moon is risen=“the moon has risen and is now in the sky.”
He is enlisted=“he has enlisted and is now serving.”
The snow has melted very fast (the happening) The snow is quite melted (the resulting state)
I am determined =“I have determined and am firm in that resolution.”
The army had advanced far into France (a real pluperfect)
The season is far advanced (advanced is an adjective rather than a
participle)
23.52 The imperative be gone! means the same thing as go (at once)!, and the same
meaning is found in the infinitive after let, must and some other phrases which have
reference to the future:
Let us be gone We must be gone
Shall we be gone?
They were impatient to be gone
23.53 By the side of he has done we have he is done, e.g
Tense 189
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Trang 38I am only too glad to be done with all responsibility
Done may here be considered an adjective; cp also:
It was rather hard to be finished with life at twenty
Inclusive Time
23.54 The Perfect is used with an indication of some length of time to denote what has lasted so long and is still:
He hath beene dead foure dayes (AV.)
How long have you lived here?
This may be called the inclusive present; correspondingly we have an inclusive past and future; if we imagine a man who was married in 1910, speaking in the year 1930, he will say: (1) I have been married twenty years; (2) In 1920 I had been married ten years; (3) In
1940 I shall have been married thirty years
I have got 23.55 In colloquial English I have got (I’ve got) has to a great extent lost the meaning of
a perfect and has become a present with the same meaning as I have (have in my possession); and in the same way I had got (I’d got) has come to be a notional preterit The reason obviously is that on account of its frequent use as an auxiliary, have was not
felt to be strong enough to carry the meaning of “possess” and therefore had to be
reinforced The phrase with got is now used not only with objects denoting things (I have got a knife), but also with immaterial objects (I’ve got no time) and before an infinitive with to
Somehow the combination with got seems more required in questions than in positive
statements “Have you it here?” is much more unnatural than “I have it here.” The reason
is that in such a sentence as “Has he got a pen?” we have the same word-order as in the ordinary type of question: “Does he want a pen?”|“Can I have a pen?” etc., with a weak
auxiliary at the beginning of the sentence (v—S—V—O, 10.4) On the other hand, if
there is no object, have you cannot be expanded into have you got:
If only it were quite certain you had got any opinions to represent But have you? (Ruskin)
There are some restrictions to the use of have got Though the infinitive to have got may
be used (He seems to have got plenty of time), the infinitive without to never adds got after can, may and the other auxiliaries; hence the different expression for the three times
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Trang 39in “You never did have any sense, you haven’t got any sense now, and you never will have any sense.”
Nor is got inserted in the imperative, in the perfect and the pluperfect:
Don’t have anything to do with him
I’ve had no time
I’d had no time
Further, have is always used without got when it forms one semantic whole with its
object, as in have a look, a smoke, a bath (7.82)
Did you have a good passage?
I had five dances with her
Thus also when have means “partake of” (eat, drink):
He had a steak and a glass of beer
Before an infinitive with to the phrase with got is extremely frequent (This is all you have got to do), even when the subject is not a person (something has got to be done) A
distinction may be made between “We don’t have to change at Crewe” (the ordinary rule,
we never have to) and “We haven’t got to change at Crewe” (this time) While sentences
like “We had to leave him there” are extremely frequent (had to=a notional preterit of must), the combination “We had got to leave” is rare, and in a question “Had you got to
leave him?” is never said instead of “Did you have to leave him?” or “Had you to leave him?”
On American have gotten, see 23.2(8)
Use of the Preterit and Perfect
23.61 The difference between the Preterit and the Perfect is in English observed more strictly than in the other languages possessing corresponding tenses The Preterit refers to some time in the past without telling anything about the connexion with the present moment, while the Perfect is a retrospective present, which connects a past occurrence with the present time, either as continued up to the present moment (inclusive time,
23.54) or as having results or consequences bearing on the present moment
The question “Did you finish?” thus refers to some definite portion of the past, while
“Have you finished?” is a question about the present status (=Amr “Are you through?”) Note also the difference in a dependent clause: “He resolved that he would smoke no more,” but “He has resolved that he will smoke no more.”
23.62 The Preterit is therefore the proper tense whenever the sentence contains such
time indications as yesterday, the other day, in 1901, etc., or is a question about the time:
“Who did you see him?”
23.63 On the other hand, when the time indicated is not yet completed (today, this
year, not yet), the Perfect is naturally used:
Tense 191
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Trang 40I have worked hard today
He has been a conscientious worker so far
This rule, however, requires some qualification, for sentences containing such time indications as the last mentioned ones may refer to some definite part of the period, either expressly mentioned or implied Thus you may ask a friend who generally meets a young lady on his way to the office: “Did you see her today?”
When I came here today, I thought everything was all right
I saw him today engaged in an animated contest (=when I saw him, he was engaged)
A friend who called today told me that Nevinson was dead
This morning, when said in the morning itself, requires the Perfect:
I have not looked at the paper this morning
But when said later it takes the Preterit:
I did not look at the paper this morning (which may be followed by “but only read it after lunch”)
Once has two meanings: in the strictly numerical sense of “one time, but not twice or
frequently” it may be combined with both tenses:
I have seen him once only (in the whole of my life)
I saw him once only (while he was here)
But in the weakened sense “once upon a time” it requires the Preterit (and is generally placed before the verb):
I once thought he would marry her
23.64 Always, ever and never may be combined with both tenses, but the Preterit is more idiomatic, and the reference to “now” which is implied in the Perfect will often be felt to
be unnatural or unnecessary It will, however, be necessary in such a sentence as this: She spoke, as indeed she has always spoken, simply, clearly, and vividly
(this emphasizes her practice at all times, while she always spoke might
mean “in those days only’)
It is worth observing that “Have you ever heard of such a thing?” is a real question, asking for information, while
“Did you ever hear of such a thing?” generally is, what the abbreviated “Did you ever?” always is, merely an emotional exclamation
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